This is what I generally hear when I tell people I am a foster mom. Now I don’t blame them. This was our major concern when praying about becoming foster parents. I think my husband thought that I would fall apart if a child was removed from our home. He had visions of me wrestling a social worker as she tried to remove MY baby. He saw them escorting me off to Federal prison as I fled with MY child across state lines. I understand the desire to be used by God and at the same time dread the fear of attachment.
I won’t lie to you, you get attached. You not only get attached, but they become your children. They have to. You can’t meet their physical needs of food and clothing and ignore their needs for love and nurturing. They are your children while they are in your home. Of course, there are plenty of reminders that they are not legally your children. Parental visits, social worker visits, foster care reviews, different last names at the doctors, etc. are a constant reminder of this. However, you are the one that is rocking them to sleep, changing their diaper, feeding and clothing them, attending to their every need. You are the one they bond to. Your biological children become their siblings, your parents become their grandparents, and your extended family their aunts, uncles, and cousins. It really is amazing.
Now we made a decision that we would foster children under four. We made this decision for a few reasons, but the obvious one is because we homeschool. In Massachusetts you are not allowed to homeschool a foster child. Now this doesn’t mean that if a child came into our home that we would kick them out as they approached school age, we realize that foster kids can be in the system for long periods of time. Both of our foster sons came to us as infants. Our first foster son we nicknamed Z* and he was placed with us when he was three months. Our second foster son, Chris*, came straight from the hospital as a six day old newborn. How could I not bond with them? How could I not love them like my own? I didn’t stand a chance with either of these precious babies!
When people realize that my boys are foster children (which isn’t difficult because one is a different ethnicity than me), they stand amazed at MY willingness to foster, MY unselfishness, MY saint-like sacrifice. To be honest it makes me very uncomfortable. I am uncomfortable because I am not the one that deserves the praise--my God is! (Psalm 115) He is the one that equips me to get up in the night; he is the one that enables me to chase Z around our church at lightning speeds as others get to fellowship; He is the one that strengthens me to sing “The Alphabet Song” twenty times in a row; and He is the one that allows me to bend into the crib every morning to Chris’s sweet smile and to hear “Mama” when Z sees me walk in the room. It is a privilege to be their foster mom. It is a privilege to serve these children and to have them live in a Christ-centered home. It is a privilege to serve God by serving His children.
Christian -- isn’t our God amazing! He is the one that calls, enables, equips, and strengthens us to serve Him, yet we are so blessed in the process. Being a foster parent has blesses me far more than I could have ever imagined. My service is His good pleasure. So the next time, Beloved, you think you could never be a foster parent, remember these two scriptures:
Philippians 2:12-13 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.Hebrews 13:20-21 Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
* Names have been changed.
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